The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) on Wednesday denied claims that it was in violation of Nigerian Content laws at the EA fields in Bayelsa.

The Ijaw Youth Congress (IYC) had on Monday alleged that SPDC had excluded indigenous players from its operations at the EA fields in breach of the community content guidelines.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the content guidelines were set out by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB).

The youth group also said that it would resist any plot to exclude members of the host community by mobilisng for a protest that would ground operations at the oil fields if the policy was not reversed.

The group also urged the Minister of Petroleum, President Muhammadu Buhari and leadership of NNPC Limited to prevail on SPDC to have a rethink and reciprocate the peaceful disposition of the host communities.

NAN also reports that SPDC operates the EA shallow offshore fields off Bayelsa coastline, deploying a Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FSPO) vessel, with a capacity to process and hold 1.4 million barrels of crude.

Reacting to the allegations of breach of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD), SPDC said that on the contrary, it was a leading player in the development of local capacity in the oil and gas sector.

In a statement, Mrs Abimbola Essien-Nelson, SPDC Media Relations Manager, said that Shell awarded contracts worth $1.9 billion to Nigerian companies and works with NCDMB in building capacity of Nigerian companies in the oil and gas sector.

“The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited Joint Venture (SPDC JV) is committed to the development of businesses in the Niger Delta.

“Working with government and community stakeholders, we have supported capacity development in several Niger Delta-owned businesses.

“The case in hand is a scheduled review of our logistics contracting process that has been in place for years. The review was supervised by the NNPC Upstream Investments Management Services  (NUIMS) and the Nigerian Content Development & Monitoring Board (NCDMB).

“It was, however, conducted via an open and transparent bidding process which resulted in the entrance of several new contractors.